


A Season Between

by fardareismai



Series: This Rose is Extra [14]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the time between the end of Holmes and Tyler are dead and the beginning of Sherlock Season 3, a series of one-shots to look in on each of our heroes. A RoseLock crossover between BBC's Sherlock and Doctor Who. Part of the This Rose is Extra series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rose

Rose frowned at the toes of her trainers as she sat in the back garden of the Holmes' house. Shanghaied there by her coworkers, her friends, her family (the one she had at the moment) and bloody Sherlock Holmes, who was all of the above. She glared at her pink Chuck Taylors (no need for boots these days) and, were looks as dangerous as they appeared, she'd have melted the rubber from them with her eyes.

 

The house wasn't the problem. It was rustically lovely and there was plenty of room inside. She had her own bedroom and bathroom, and Mr. Holmes (who asked her over breakfast every morning to call him Siger, though she still hadn't gotten the hang of that peculiar name) had shown her a rather beautifully proportioned library that he told her was at her disposal. She didn't have the heart to tell him that she had an electronic book.

 

The grounds weren't the problem. The house was set on a rather lovely park that had not yet been discovered by city planners who might want to turn it into a subdivision. The Holmes' were lucky enough to have a small orchard, several hives of busy honeybees, and a warren of rabbits in their yard to give it a nearly Disney-esque charm. It was very calming and pleasant.

 

The Holmes’ weren’t even the problem, though they began to approach it. Violet and Siger had been extremely welcoming and accommodating, and Siger in particular had seemed anxious to get to know her better.

 

It was the reason that she was stuck in the wilds somewhere between Cardiff and London, tucked away in the country like she had done something wrong rather than saving the world that was the problem.

 

“ _Rose Tyler, I love you.”_

 

_Rose grinned. “And Sherlock Holmes, I love you too.”_

 

_He bent his head to bring their mouths together again and, for a long moment the Earth stood steady- the stars were not going out, there were no threats, no dangers, no call to save the day. The defenders of the Earth and of the Universe could take a moment at the seaside and revel in newly acknowledged love._

 

_Rose should have known that it couldn’t last._

 

_The pair of them finally made their way back to the cluster of people around the black vehicle._

 

“ _Gave them a bit of a show,” Rose said quietly to Sherlock, glancing at him to see if he would mind. His refrain of ‘private things should be kept private’ seemed to have been compromised._

 

“ _It makes everything very clear,” he said, his voice shockingly cold and his eyes narrowed._

 

_Rose glanced to where he was looking and saw Mycroft glaring back with a deceptively bland expression._

 

“ _What is it?” Rose asked._

 

“ _He’s going to ask something of me. Something I will not like, but will probably have to do anyway.”_

 

_Rose frowned and looked back at the elder Holmes brother, trying to determine what Sherlock had seen. “He could just be here to welcome you home,” she suggested._

 

“ _Mycroft? Express sentiment? Or leave London, for that matter. Not but in the direst of circumstances, and even then he’d probably text it to me. It obviously couldn’t wait for us to return else he’d never have left England.”_

 

“ _The universe is safe. It can’t be worse than that, right?”_

 

“ _Mmm,” Sherlock muttered. “With Mycroft involved, you never know.”_

 

Rose could hear someone approaching her hiding place. She’d scurried up one of the large, ancient trees in the Holmes’ apple orchard and had spent the past hour sitting somewhat uncomfortably with her back to the trunk and her feet hanging down either side of a thick branch. She knew that she could be seen, but her relative height made it easy to ignore what was happening below her.

 

She’d run away and hidden like a teenager.

 

Rose had learned a few things from Sherlock, and could determine from the length of the strides and the weight on the ground that it was Siger who was approaching her. He had a little shop in the outbuilding nearby, so she anticipated that he would continue on and was surprised when he stopped and leaned against the tree directly under her.

 

Rose waited for him to speak. To tell her that Violet wanted to talk to her- to introduce her to some aspect of Holmes Family History that she had not yet been shown, or to teach her how to bake Sherlock’s favourite pudding or to subtly question when she and Sherlock would be getting married. Rose knew the older woman meant well, but it seemed that all of her actions were calculated to make Rose miss either her own mother (who she hadn’t seen in nearly 18 months of her own time, and six of linear time), or Sherlock.

 

Siger, however, remained silent, simply leaning against the tree and looking out on the grounds. Eventually, Rose returned to her musings.

 

_Rose had hugged Gwen and Martha and Jake and they had congratulated her as the brothers Holmes had glared at each other icily and ignored the displays of affection going on at their elbows._

 

“ _What are you doing here, Mycroft?” Sherlock asked._

 

“ _No ‘hello’ from my long absent brother? No hug? You grow more uncivil every day.”_

 

“ _The diet isn’t working, and you’re still losing hair, now tell me what actually brought you here.”_

 

“ _England needs you, Brother-mine.”_

 

“ _England can give me a few days.”_

 

_Mycroft did not miss the way that Sherlock’s eyes cut over to Rose, leaning her head against Jake’s shoulder. Neither did he miss how drawn and exhausted the pair of them looked. Whatever had happened in the past six months had aged them both._

 

“ _Would that it could,” Mycroft said, and for once there was some truth in his tone. That barest breath of honesty caused Sherlock’s eyes to sharpen, however._

 

“ _What has happened?”_

 

“ _You allowed the rats to scurry, dear brother, while you did other things.” Mycroft glanced at Rose and then back at Sherlock meaningfully. “The stars are all back and the world is calling it a hoax, and you must return to your duty. No rest for the wicked.”_

 

“ _How long do I have?” Sherlock’s voice was resigned._

 

“ _You must leave immediately. It can’t even wait until the morning.”_

 

“ _It_ will _wait until morning,” Sherlock corrected. “I’ll have to determine what Rose is going to do.”_

 

“ _What Rose is going to do about what?” Rose had asked, making both men jump. The two most observant men in Europe had allowed her to sneak up on them. Again._

 

Siger shifted underneath her and Rose glanced down and him again. He had sat on the ground among the roots of the tree and removed two satsumas from his pocket and set them beside himself. He then removed a book from another pocket and flipped through to his page before stilling and allowing her to return to her memories.

 

“ _Ms. Tyler,” Mycroft said, formally._

 

“ _Mr. Holmes,” she responded, and turned to Sherlock. “What Rose is going to do about what?”_

 

“ _I require my brother’s services in an undercover operation in Russia,” Mycroft said, bluntly._

 

_Rose did not even blink. “I had no idea Moriarty’s web extended so far. How peculiar. When do we leave?”_

 

“ _No.” The word had come in stereo from both Holmes brothers and the entire Torchwood team._

 

“I have an extra orange, if you like,” a voice broke into her musings.

 

Rose startled and nearly fell off her perch. Once she was steady again, she glanced down at Siger, who was looking up at her and holding the orange that he had mentioned.

 

“What?” she said, foolishly.

 

“A Satsuma. I have two, you see, and I don’t need them both. I just thought you might like one of them. I can toss it up there, no need to come down.”

 

“Er… sure.”

 

With a surprisingly dexterous flick of his wrist, Siger sent the fruit popping up to her, and Rose snatched it quickly from the air. She glanced down at him to see those light eyes (so very familiar) sparkling up at her for a moment.

 

“Thank you.”

 

He nodded and turned back to his book.

 

Rose rolled the fruit between her palms and frowned at it.

 

_Everyone was babbling in response to Rose’s assumption that she would be leaving with Sherlock, and nothing was being heard._

 

_Rose put the first finger and thumb of her right hand between her lips and blew a shrill whistle that cut through everything else. It was her preferred method of dealing with over-excited new recruits to Torchwood and bringing their attention together._

 

_Every eye turned to her._

 

“ _Why not?” she asked simply, but kept her eyes trained on Jake. From the corner of her eye, however, she saw Mycroft’s mouth open and she raised an imperious finger to silence him._

 

“ _You’ve been working flat out for eighteen months of linear time, Rose, and another 12 outside of the standard timeline.” Rose could, again, see Mycroft shifting uncomfortably, but she did not respond to him still. “You have to take time off. If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t an emergency, leave would have been enforced ages ago.”_

 

“ _I’m the director, I can’t take leave.”_

 

_Gwen rolled her eyes. “You’re the director. You can technically take as much leave as you want.”_

 

_Rose shook her head and pressed on. “I’m dead. I can hardly book a cruise to Aruba. Why not use my leave to save the world a bit?”_

 

“ _You save the world in your day job,” Mickey said, crossly._

 

“ _Rory has made an official statement, as your doctor…”_

 

“ _Of course he has,” Rose muttered._

 

“ _That you are to relax and not to work for the benefit of the planet, or other planets for a minimum of six weeks,” Jake continued. He glanced up from the text on his phone, blue eyes sparkling. “He recommends going home to Jackie because she’ll keep you still.”_

 

“ _Not an option,” Mycroft inserted, finally ignoring Rose’s raised finger. “I require Sherlock to stay dead, and the Tyler home is far too public. She will have to stay in Cardiff.”_

 

_Jake shook his head. “Rory says she can’t come back. It’s not healthy to live underground for a year running.”_

 

“ _She could stay with my gran,” Mickey suggested hesitantly._

 

“ _She can’t go to London, she’s too well-known there,” Mycroft explained._

 

“ _She could go back to Dublin with you and Ianto, Jake,” Gwen suggested._

 

_Again, Jake shook his head. “That’d never be restful. Besides, we only have the one room place.”_

 

“ _If I have to stay in England, I’m staying in Cardiff or nearby so I can be available to help if I’m needed,” Rose inserted._

 

“ _You won’t be.”_

 

_Rose glared at Jake and his tone of finality. “Now see here, Jake Simmonds,” she began. From there, the arguments deteriorated._

 

“ _What about our home?” Sherlock’s low voice somehow managed to cut across the din of arguments and shut everyone up._

 

“ _I beg your pardon?” Mycroft said._

 

“ _Wait… what?” was Rose’s less-articulate response._

 

“ _Mother and Father’s place,” Sherlock explained to Mycroft. “It is in the country, there are no close neighbours, and it is approximately midway between London and Cardiff.” He turned to Jake now, continuing to ignore Rose’s ever-more-heated glare. “My mother is not quite as… wilful as Jackie Tyler, but she is not easily crossed.” Finally he turned to Rose. “You would be safe there, and my mother and father would treat you well. You'd be close enough to Cardiff to come if they needed you, and it's a restful area. You might find you like it.”_

 

“ _I might find I'm bored out of my mind,” Rose said, acidly._

 

“ _I think you probably will,” Sherlock agreed._

 

“A nice spot to think, up a tree.” Siger's voice pulled Rose from her musings again. “Sherlock used to think so, but he was called Billy then. He'd have trouble quieting his mind. He felt things, you see. Mike was always difficult because he never seemed to respond to things. Even as an infant, he rarely cried, and once he started speaking, he never did. He was a skilled liar, even as a child. Billy, on the other hand, he felt everything. Like to drive him mad if he didn't run away and find somewhere quiet.” He glanced up and saw that Rose's eyes were on him, listening carefully to what might have been, up until then, just the musings of a man who was not quite alone. He continued. “This tree, just that spot you're sitting in. He'd climb there and stay all day, if we'd let him. It was a quiet place for him. A place for him to calm his mind, you see. I'd come out here and bring him a satusuma. Maybe an apple, if they weren't in season. I'd read here in the roots and... he could talk to me, if he needed to talk. Or not, if he didn't.”

 

_Sherlock's argument had won out. The Torchwood team thought it was a brilliant idea and even Mycroft had concluded that it was logically sound. Rose had been the last hold-out, insisting that she could go with Sherlock. It was Jake and Mickey's threat that they would drug her, take her to the Holmes' residence and stand guard over her night-and-day that finally won out. Mickey was also taking time off (he did not have to be shanghaied into it) and he and Martha were taking a trip to the continent- a trip from which, Rose was sure, Martha would return wearing a diamond ring._

 

_She couldn't do that to them, and so she had, finally, acquiesced._

 

Rose slid out of the tree and sat herself next to Siger.

 

“What are you reading?” she asked quietly.

 

He kept the book open in his hands and did not look up, but he answered her immediately. “ _The Ring and the Book_ by Robert Browning.”

 

Rose nodded and stared again at the fruit in her hands.

 

“He'll come back, you know. Billy- Sherlock has a way of slipping through the cracks. And it's so much easier to stay alive when there's something to stay alive for.”

 

Rose nodded again, but she could feel a lump forming in her throat and could not seem to swallow it down. Suddenly, and to her horror, she found that tears were sliding down her cheeks. She sniffled and attacked her cheeks with her hands to wipe them away.

 

Siger turned and picked up a flask that she hadn't realized he'd had with him. He opened it and poured tea into the attached cup and handed it to her.

 

“There you are,” he said, gently. “You drink that up now.”

 

Again, Rose nodded and followed his instructions. When the cup was empty, her tears seemed to have stopped.

 

“Would you like to tell me what's got you so scared?” Siger asked as he took the cup back from her.

 

_In a tiny hotel room in the type of place that doesn't ask for your name to stay in, Rose and Sherlock were fighting._

 

_It hadn't started as fighting. It had actually started as making love. They had slowly and reverently explored one-another's bodies and whispered 'I love you' dozens of times into each other's skin as they poured themselves into one-another._

 

_It had been after that. After Rose had fallen asleep for a few brief hours and found Sherlock had left their bed and was sitting in the windowsill, turning a cigarette over and over between his fingers._

 

“ _Where did you get that?”_

 

“ _Last one from the pack that I bought in the other universe,” he answered shortly, not looking at her._

 

“ _Sherlock?”_

 

“ _You said that 'loving him was very you,'” Sherlock said. “You said that I was like him. Sarah Jane thought I might be the Doctor, and Jack and Donna both told me how like him I am. Is that what I am, Rose? A replacement for the Doctor?”_

 

“ _What?”_

 

“ _Don't pretend you didn't hear me. Am I just a replacement for the Doctor?”_

 

“ _Are you mad? I stood between the two of you and chose you. What gives you the idea that you're a replacement? I don't need someone to replace the Doctor, I could have had him!”_

 

“ _And what if he'd given you the words? What if he'd given you the answer you were looking for, Rose? You said that it might be worth it- all the pain and hardship of the universe, of being apart from everyone that loves you if he could answer your question. If he'd been the one to tell you he loved you on that beach today, would you have gone with him?”_

 

“ _No!” Rose cried._

 

“ _No?” Sherlock asked, sceptically. “You've done it before. Time and again you left Mickey and your mother. What makes me special?”_

 

“ _I left because I was running away. I was running from a life of boredom and mediocrity. I left because my mother didn't understand, and my boyfriend wanted to hold me in place. I left because I wanted bigger things.”_

 

“ _And now?”_

 

“ _What more could I want? My mum is happy, Mickey is happy, and I'm happy. I'm getting to have the adventure of the every-day, while also getting to have the more exciting kinds as well, and with a man that I love like mad. What else is there?”_

 

_Sherlock stared at her, impassively for a very long time._

 

“ _Sherlock?” she finally asked, unable to take the silence for another moment._

 

“ _Go back to sleep, Rose.” Though she was not one to take orders, she could not deny him somehow. She hoped that he would join her again but she was sure he did not._

 

_He was gone when she woke again, and there was a sealed white envelope on the nightstand. She had a vague recollection of a kiss on her forehead and a murmured word, but it might have been a dream._

 

“We had angry words before he left,” Rose confessed to Sherlock's father. “And they weren't resolved. I can't... I'm afraid that... what if he doesn't want me when he comes back?

 

Siger smiled and patted her knee gently. “Ms. Tyler, I think you will find that my son, when he sets his mind and heart on something, is not easily dissuaded. Not even with hard words. Now, eat your orange and have another cup of tea. You'll feel better.”

 

Rose obediently drank another cup of tea and dug her fingernails into the skin of the orange. The fresh, sweet smell rose from the fruit and it did seem to clear her head.

 

“I once knew a man who saved the world with a satsuma from his Christmas stocking,” Rose said after a long, quiet moment.

 

“Yes? You seem to have some very interesting stories to tell. I'd be happy to listen.”

 

Rose looked at the older man speculatively. “Do you believe in aliens, Mr. Holmes?”

 

“Please call me Siger. And yes, I do.”

 

~?~?~?~?~

 

That night, alone in her room, Rose finally removed the sealed envelope from her bag. She had never opened it, not in the month she had been at his parents' house. She felt that, if it said what she most feared and she never read it, she need never acknowledge it.

 

But Siger was right, and Rose knew she had to face her fears.

 

She tore into the letter.

 

_Sherlock sat for a long time, staring at the sheet of cheap hotel stationary before himself on the desk. He wanted something for her to read and know that he was sorry for what he'd said. That he cared. That he would want her with his last breath, if he took it while he was away from her._

 

_But he had no words._

 

~~_I will miss you._ ~~

 

~~_I love you._ ~~

 

~~_Please forgive me._ ~~

 

~~_You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated only dust and stones._ ~~

 

_Nothing was right._

 

_Finally, he wrote only the truth without embellishment or even sentiment._

 

These were the words that Rose read.

 

**I will be thinking of you always, my Rose.**

 


	2. The Doctor and Donna Noble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A look in on the Doctor and Donna after the events of the last chapter of Holmes and Tyler are Dead. I don't want to spoil, so I've a much longer A/N at the bottom that you're welcome to read or ignore at your discretion.**

Donna sat on the jumpseat and glared at the console. The Doctor had been avoiding her for a week ever since they had returned to their universe. Not that he was hiding or anything, but he'd show up at her door with that silly-ass smile on his face, take her somewhere, talk her ear off about nothing, get them both into trouble or jail or nearly executed, force her to get them out of things, and then back to the TARDIS like nothing had happened. Then, he'd disappear to somewhere she couldn't find him until he decided to do it again.

She'd tried making him talk about it- when they were together on some planet or another and he'd whip his head around at a glimpse of golden hair, or the sound of a feminine laugh- she'd try to start the conversation with him, but he always talked his way around it and, before she realized, she would be talking about something else entirely. He was infuriatingly good at that.

Donna continued to glare at the console. He was her best friend and he was running away from her, and if it were anyone else she was having a problem with, he was the one she would have gone to talk about it with. It seemed, then, that with the Doctor out of commission, she would need to return to an old habit.

"Doctor?" Donna yelled down the corridor. The TARDIS was usually good at making her voice carry to wherever he was, even if it was too far away in normal space. Donna preferred not to think about things like that as they made her head hurt.

"Doctor," she called again, knowing that he would try to ignore her. "Get your skinny arse into the console room, I want to go home."

Inside the TARDIS, first left, second right, third on the left, straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fourth door on the right (across from the wardrobe) the Doctor was sitting in a small room filled largely with components that he had acquired from various marketplaces across the universe to scavenge for TARDIS parts. If Donna were to wander into him (unlikely) he would say that he was trying to fix a…

The Doctor sighed. He was so completely off his game that he couldn't even think of some strange, fantastical TARDIS element that he would be trying to fix. He knew he'd been a right misery since the Dalek Crucible and leaving Rose behind.

Again.

He leaned back against the wall and thunked his head against the warm coral. "Could it possibly get any worse, my girl?" he asked the TARDIS, rhetorically.

The TARDIS, however, had never been good with rhetorical questions and routed Donna's voice to him at that moment.

"Doctor, get your skinny arse into the console room. I want to go home."

The Doctor's hearts stopped for a worryingly long moment. Donna was leaving him? She couldn't. She was the only thing keeping his tenuous sanity in place. She was the only thing… person… friend who could remind him that the goodness that Rose Tyler had coaxed from him was still there, even when he felt like a slug.

She was also the person who reminded him, when he felt like the laws of time were his playthings, that he was just her skinny Spaceman, and Donna was not impressed by him.

Without her, he would be lost.

She was going home?

The Doctor levered himself to his feet like a man sleepwalking. He knew that he deserved this- of course he did. He hardly deserved someone like Donna Noble putting up with him anyway, much less when he was being so impossible. She deserved to go home to her mum and granddad and her friends and her life and her beans on…

No, not that.

But if Donna wanted to go, to leave him, the Doctor knew that he'd ignore his own wishes and needs and let her. He didn't beg people to stay with him. He wasn't that kind of man. He wasn't even the kind of man who would ask someone to come with him, much less twice, and look at what had happened when he'd let himself try it out.

He'd met a beautiful woman, kissed by time, and he'd shared her life and he'd shared her heart and he'd shared her wonder in the universe for two timeless years, and he'd saved that life, and she'd saved his, and his battered, scarred hearts had healed to the point that, when it came time, he was able to let her go to live her fantastic life without him.

And he had been able to remain the man who would allow his companions to leave if they needed.

So, even if he felt like he was walking to his own execution, he made his way through the TARDIS to the next in a long line of people who would leave him lonely. Because Rose Tyler had made him better. He slapped a smile across his face that felt more like a grimace and sent up a prayer to the Bad Wolf (the only god or goddess in which he had ever believed) that Donna wouldn't see through it.

Donna watched him walk into the console room- normally loose limbs stiff, and an expression on his face that he might have thought was a smile, but looked more like rictus. She shook her head. He looked like hell.

"Right then, Spaceman," Donna said, pretending she couldn't see his discomfort, "I want to go home."

The Doctor flinched at this statement, but covered by jumping to the console as though it weren't breaking his hearts to lose Donna. "Right, of course. Been a long time out in the universe with me. I can see why home and hearth is appealing just now. Right..." He trailed off after a moment, and his movements stilled.

Donna recognized the look as his "lost Rose" look, and sighed internally. He wouldn't talk to her about it, but she had an idea of who he would talk to.

"How about two days after we were last there?" Donna suggested. "That'll be a Thursday night, and Mum won't be around. Drop me off around 2:30, but I want you back at 5:30 for tea, all right?"

The Doctor stopped dead in his movements around the console. "Back?" he asked, voice tense.

"Well, yeah. For tea. You, me and Gramps. We'll go down to the pub probably, since Mum never lets him go. They've got great chips. Then we'll look at the stars with Gramps and head back out. I know you don't like to stay in one place for long."

The Doctor had not moved. "You'll," he squeaked, and cleared his throat to return his voice to normal, "you're coming back out with me?"

"'Course I am," Donna scoffed. "You're not abandoning me in Chiswick just because I'm smarter than you now."

"I- smarter? Now, Donna Noble-" the Doctor sputtered in disgust, unable to form a complete sentence.

Donna grinned, and as the Doctor came around the console to confront her, he saw it. His mouth snapped closed, and he looked at her for a long moment and, for the first time since Rose Tyler had told him that she wouldn't have missed it for the world, the Doctor smiled a real, natural smile. His shoulders un-tensed, and if his eyes brightened just slightly, Donna would never mention it.

"Now Donna," the Doctor said with a falsely stern expression, "one session with Sherlock Holmes, and saving the world once does not make you cleverer than me."

"Watch it, Spaceman, that's hardly the first time I've saved the world."

The Doctor's eyes suddenly clouded over as he remembered that her saving his life under the Thames had, in fact, saved the world time and again, simply because he'd been able to do it. He also remembered Rose's disappointment with him for so fully giving into despair that he had given up- given in.

The TARDIS thumped into their destination.

"Right, here we are," the Doctor said, rallying all of the false enthusiasm he'd been so quick to use as a mask for the past few weeks. "Give Wilf my lo- my best."

"Yeah, you can give it to him yourself. 5:30, Spaceman, don't be late. Chips and pints at the pub will do you good. Might put some meat on your bones." Donna did not miss the despair that rose up into his eyes at that moment, but she was determined. "I'm not taking 'no' for an answer, Doctor. 5:30. Don't dare be late." With that pronouncement, she breezed out the door.

~?~?~?~?~

"Trouble is, I feel like it's partly my fault," Donna said, sitting across the table from Wilf with her hands wrapped around a mug of sweet, milky tea. "I knew what it was doing to him that she was gone. I saw the way he smiled when he looked at her. He'd never smiled like that before- with his whole body. And now he doesn't smile at all- every time he does, it's like a mask. But I told her about River. I told her about his wife. And I told her to stay with Sherlock."

"He's got a wife?" Wilf asked, shocked.

"Will do, yeah. Sort of. It's weird with time travel, you know? And they both time travel, apparently, so she's married to him, but he's not married to her yet, get it?"

Wilf shook his head, but gestured to her to allow her to continue.

"Well… we met her awhile back. And she's… he's terrified of her, Gramps. I don't know if it's her that he's terrified of, or if it's what she represents- marriage, you know."

"He's too young to be getting married."

"He only looks young, Gramps. He's like 900 or something."

"Really?" Wilf looked impressed. "Well then, he should be thinking of settling down."

Donna laughed at her grandfather's abrupt about-face. "He'll never settle down, Gramps. He's going to travel the stars forever, you know."

"And you?"

"I've been thinking about that, actually. I love it, the stars. The universe. It's amazing and beautiful and horrible and terrifying. And humans. We're brilliant and loathsome. And I don't want to miss a moment of it, but it weighs on you after a while. And then there's something that Rose said when she left- about how, if you stay with him forever, eventually he'll outlive you. There's the fact that he lives practically forever, but, you know, it's dangerous out there too. And I think that weighs on him too- if Rose had stayed… if he'd had to watch her die… what would it have done to him? What would it do to him if I did? So I want to stay with him, keep seeing the universe and then, when I'm sure he's all right, and I'm not as sure that I can keep up, I'll come home. But I want to be sure he's all right and, maybe, that he has someone else to be with him before I do."

Donna and Wilf both glanced out the window where the TARDIS sat in the back garden, her mysterious pilot hidden from them both.

~?~?~?~?~

The Doctor considered piloting straight to 5:30 and tea with Donna and Wilf, but he couldn't bring himself to speed his need to appear all right when he was anything but. He considered piloting away, taking some time in the vortex alone and meeting Donna and Wilf in a few hours for them, and a few weeks for him, but he was sure Donna would know. She always seemed to know when he was being dishonest. He considered just piloting away for good, never to return to those green eyes that knew him better than he wanted to admit, and could see through his mask, even when she didn't call him on it. Every time he reached for the controls, however, his heart clenched at the thought of being alone- no noisy human to take his mind off his thoughts. No Donna to remind him to drink tea and eat food and get out of the TARDIS on occasion, and to save him from execution when he was rude to the wrong person.

He had a feeling- a premonition- that if he left Donna behind, he'd lose the best part of himself that was left. He had an odd vision of himself surrounded by flames in an orange space suit and saying that the laws of time were his to command- in defiance of everything he had learned in a hundred years of the Time Lord Academy. In defiance of everything he had always stood for.

So he waited, experiencing the hours in real time. The slow path, he thought wryly. The path he'd never taken before.

"Why'd you tell her, old girl? Why'd you tell Rose about River Song?" It was a question that he'd been mulling over for some time. The TARDIS knew, as well as anyone did, that he could run for centuries. He could run like the best of them. He could hide from his responsibilities practically forever. Why tell Rose about his future at all? Donna he could understand, but not the TARDIS.

"Because, foolish Time Lord, I've always known better than you."

The Doctor turned to find an impossible vision sitting on the jumpseat, ankles crossed, back straight, looking up at him through a fringe of dark lashes with a mischievous smile on her face.

"What?" he breathed.

The girl's smile widened, and laughter sparkled in the depths of those dark eyes. Eyes that the Doctor could have sworn he'd never see again.

"What?" he stammered again.

The girl leaned forward and raised an eyebrow as though waiting for something else.

"What?" The Doctor could manage nothing more articulate.

The girl burst into laughter then, that tinkling sound that had once regularly rung through this room, but should never have done so again.

"Susan," the Doctor whispered.

The girl smiled a slightly pitying smile. "I'm afraid not. TARDIS voice interface." She gestured down at herself. "This is an image file that retains her behaviours and personality. It is one of my favourites."

"So… so you… you're…" the Doctor stammered.

"You've been speaking out loud to me much more often than usual. You need someone to talk to, and you're refusing to talk to the Donna Noble, you've been talking to me instead. You're afraid that the Donna Noble will tell you what you need to hear. She would have done already, you know, but she's not yet sure what it is. I am."

The Doctor seemed, finally, to have come out of his stupor at seeing his dear, lost granddaughter, and was taking in her words at last. "Now see here," he began, angry now. "I don't need-"

"But you do," the TARDIS cut him off. "You need to know why I told my Wolf-"

" _Your_ Wolf?"

" _My_ Wolf. _My_ Arkityor. Why I told her about the song over the waters. Have you looked ahead, Doctor? Have you found her in your timelines?"

"No. You know I never do that."

"You used to, Thief. You used to look ahead. Now you spent too much time looking behind. Look ahead, and you'll see why it was so important."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the TARDIS, looking very much like his last form. "Looking ahead is cheating."

The TARDIS matched the Doctor's stance. "Looking ahead is wisdom, Thief. You've learned many things in the last eleven centuries or so, but never that. Do as I tell you."

The Doctor continued to scowl, but he obediently closed his eyes and traced his timelines forward. There was a point along those lines. It glowed weirdly, as fixed-points always did. There were two options to reach it.

_In one he was another man- not merely living in another body, but a ruthless man, a killer. There was ice in the hearts of that man, the place that Rose had filled had frozen over- here was a man who would leave a child behind because he did not trust the woman she would become. Here was a man who would willingly put his companions in danger to achieve his own ends. Here was a man who would be killed by a woman who loved him, but that he did not love._

_In the other, his face changed, but his hearts did not. This second man took Rose's words to hearts, and allowed Donna's goodness to guide him. This second man saved the woman who would be his wife. This man allowed her to save him right back. This man put his faith in her, he wore her ring, and the fixed point was not his death, but life. An infant with golden eyes._

" _What shall we call her, my love?"_

" _Susan Rose Song."_

_Here was a man whose mind was not silent, for the first time in what seemed like forever- there was a voice in the void. Here was a father._

The Doctor opened his eyes to find the image of his granddaughter still standing before him, watching him carefully.

"My Wolf told you what you must hear. You must love her, because nothing good can come of any other choice. You will not lose by letting go of our Arkytior, so long as you keep her words in your hearts, my Doctor."

~?~?~?~?~

Across the pub table from him, Donna watched the Doctor carefully. He seemed… better. His shoulders were less tight, his smiles a bit more genuine, his eyes a bit less haunted. She might have suspected him of taking time away from her- hiding in the vortex for weeks before coming back to dinner- if his old box hadn't remained in her mother's garden the entire time she had been with her grandfather.

He tried to order a banana daiquiri, and got a mystified look from their waitress.

"Sorry, mate, we don't do those kinds of drinks. Maybe just a pint?"

The Doctor looked at Donna with clear desperation in his eyes. "I don't know what I like to drink. Should I get the same thing you got?"

Donna briefly considered the humour of ordering him a vodka cranberry (the only cocktail that the place would create, and only because she'd nagged the ear off of the barman for five weeks straight every time she came in with her granddad) and ordered him a pint and a basket of chips for everyone to share. He'd paled slightly at the mention of chips, but Donna ignored that.

The Doctor didn't say anything about the chips, however. He started to tell a story about Martha and Captain Jack and himself running from cannibals that had Wilf looking at him in awe, and Donna giggling at the Captain's antics until their drinks arrived.

The Doctor picked up his beer and took a large gulp. His eyes bugged out and he spilled his drink over the table as a massive spasm of coughing overtook him.

"Gah! What is that? It tastes like a Raxicoricofallapatorian's back sweat!" He picked up the glass and took an inquisitive sniff. "Ugh. And it smells like an Absorbaloff's breath." He glared into the glass for a moment. "I swear I used to like this stuff. Last body, Jack took me out to a bar and I drank him under the table."

Donna had buried her face in her hands when people started to turn their heads at his antics. Honestly, she couldn't take her stupid Spaceman _anywhere_ normal.

"Would you calm down and lower your voice?" Donna hissed. "You're going to get us thrown out!"

"But Donna," the Doctor whined, "I don't like my drink! I need a new one!"

Donna sighed and switched glasses with him, setting her untasted cocktail in front of him, and taking what was left in his glass for herself.

"But it's pink," the Doctor said, glaring at the drink as though it were an alien threat.

"And just what, exactly, is wrong with pink?"

"It's…" the Doctor seemed to catch Donna's dangerous tone and looked up to meet her eyes. Whatever he saw there made him stop speaking and swallow hard. "It's nothing. It's a lovely shade. Would look quite attractive with yellow, even." He picked up the glass and took a somewhat more cautious sip than his last. Again, his eyes went wide, but this time with pleasure. "It's really good!"

Donna rolled her eyes and mumbled something that sounded very much like "alien menace" under her breath.

Wilf, who had been doing his best to hold in his laughter at the pair of them finally lost control and began roaring. Both the Doctor and Donna stared at him, bewildered.

"You all right, Gramps?" Donna asked.

"The pair of you," he snickered. "You're like children. Remind me of your mum and her sister when they were kids- always sniping away at each other."

Donna and the Doctor looked at each other, bewildered. They were saved from having to formulate some response by the arrival of their chips.

The Doctor stared at the fried potatoes in something that looked remarkably like terror. Donna and Wilf had no such qualms and each grabbed a few to begin eating.

"Aren't... aren't you going to put vinegar on them?" the Doctor asked.

"Prefer them without," Donna said. "If you want vinegar though, you can have it."

The Doctor stared for a long moment at the chips in the basket on the table- glittering with salt, but not damp with vinegar. Rose had always put vinegar on her chips, and he'd always eaten hers. She'd teased that, if she was paying for them, she could have them however she wanted. He'd never argued, though he'd occasionally rolled blue eyes at her and called her a "silly ape."

Two bodies, and he'd never had chips without vinegar.

The Doctor took one of the morsels from the basket and ate it.

"I prefer chips without vinegar," he said softly and to no one in particular.

Donna said nothing, but she noted that the fact seemed to rest uneasily on her friend's mind.

~?~?~?~?~

"Around that one are these five planets in five different colours- one is bright red, one is blue, green, purple, and gold. It looks like a piece of jewellery, if you get far enough away and look down on it. It's beautiful."

Wilf noticed the wistful tone in the apparently younger man's voice. "Did you ever take your Rose to see it?"

"No."

"Will you take your wife to see it?"

"Donna talks too much."

"Always has done," Wilf said with a smile.

Sylvia had returned home early and had made Donna stay behind to talk with her when the Doctor and Wilf had retreated to the hilltop and the stars.

"It's not so bad, you know, marriage. Difficult. My Eileen was a force of nature. Donna takes after her. It wasn't ever easy, and sometimes we did nothing but scream at each other, but it was good. At the end of the day, it was always the two of us against the world. As long as there's love, marriage isn't a prison, you know?"

The Doctor sighed and addressed the cosmos stretched above them. "That's the trouble though. I've never loved, not really. Not like that. Not before Rose." The Doctor gave a heavy sigh. "It's odd though. After the Time War I should have been at my most unlovable and un-loving. Instead, when I found her, I was at my most vulnerable and she slipped through the cracks and mended the broken pieces of me into a whole. I was horrible back then- old and bitter and angry. I yelled at her and called her names. I took her places that I knew would break her heart and didn't listen to her when she was right, but she just kept pouring that love and goodness into me." The Doctor looked at Wilf. "And then she nearly died to save my sorry life, and I did die saving hers and this me was born. Born from her kiss. And these hearts," he placed his hands over his chest, "were created to beat out the rhythm of her name. And I can't marry someone when that's the case. I was born loving Rose Tyler, and I think I'll die loving her."

"And your wife?"

"That's the thing though, Wilf. When I die, another man will walk away. My memories, my knowledge, but different hearts. Hearts that might beat for River Song instead."

For a long time, neither man spoke.

"In that case," Wilf said, finally, "don't you go rushing off to get married. I want you to stick around as long as possible, do you understand that, son?"

The Doctor smiled at this last word. He remembered another voice that had said 'I don't do families' once, and he could nearly feel the man he had once been laughing at himself.

"Don't worry, _Dad_ ," he teased. "I'd like to stick around myself. But there are some things… some people… that are worth dying for."

Wilf nodded, understanding perfectly, and patted him on the shoulder. The two men descended into a comfortable silence and watched the stars turn.

* * *

**A/N: "Hey, Wheel," I hear some of you say, "you're pretty well-known for seriously disliking the Doctor/River ship. Why would you write a chapter like this?" My answer to you is this: I don't like Doctor/River for many reasons, including thinking that River Song is an unpleasant character and the Eleventh Doctor is an unpleasant character and they have an entirely toxic relationship that is unhealthy for both of them. However, I put a fair amount of effort and thought into what would make River and the Doctor's relationship palatable. That is pretty much what this is. I'm happy to discuss it with anyone who has questions in a private forum.**

**I've been asked if I will be writing more about the Doctor in this 'verse. Simply put, unless he comes back over to PW for some reason, no. I'm back to writing Rose in Sherlock's world, because I think the adventures of exceptional humans are fun. I will not be writing about River Song, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, or Clara Oswald. Sorry about that, but those characters do not interest me.**

**I will also not be writing more about Donna Noble, at least not in this 'verse, even though that character _does_ interest me.**

**Happy Fanfiction Friday, all!**


	3. Sherlock Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Look everyone, it's back from the grave.**
> 
>  
> 
> **So, I'll not bore you with talk of my personal mental state, but the bad vibes that were plaguing me concerning this series have mostly been dealt with through the medium of "ignoring it until it goes away" and now I'm back to writing the lovely Sherlock and Rose.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Because, and this is very important, this 'verse does have a future, and it will be very exciting if I can ever get it written. So, because my other WIPs are either way ahead of my current posting schedule or collaborative with someone far cleverer than I, I have actually decided to devote the entire month of November to writing the first installment of my treatment of Season 3 for National Novel Writing Month.**
> 
>  
> 
> **I intend to begin posting it no later than December 28 which is actually 1 year to the day from when I started posting Wolf, so it's a very auspicious date.**
> 
>  
> 
> **So never fear, my lovelies, there will be more of this 'verse and these lovely characters. You have my word.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Happy Fanfiction Friday!**

Sherlock was some miles away from the monastery when he finally slowed, certain that he had not been followed. He'd changed from his saffron robes into something utilitarian and black back in the cloisters. He'd been quite certain that his trust in the Abbot was not misplaced, but his heart still thrummed that someone might have followed him. His skin crawled as though spiders walked over it.

Sherlock ran a hand over his shorn hair and winced. Even after a month in the monastery where camouflage had required a shaved head, it still shocked him that he had no hair to run his hands through when he was thinking.

Unbidden, the phantom feel of Rose's fingers in his hair made Sherlock pause. He wondered, for a moment, what she would think of the bare centimetre of dark fuzz on his head. She'd never expressed a strong opinion about his looks, hairstyle, or clothes save when she occasionally reminded him to get a haircut or instructed him to dress properly for an event. Her fingers did seem to find his hair any time they kissed, however, finding purchase and pulling, dragging her fingernails across his scalp in a pleasure-pain that always made Sherlock gasp, no matter how many times she did it.

He shook his head, forcing these distracting thoughts back behind the rosewood door where he kept her and continued moving forward to the meeting place where Mycroft's man would tell him where next he was needed.

It had only been nine weeks without her- the longest he'd gone without seeing her nearly since they had met, and Sherlock had been shocked at how often she crossed his mind. In the past, the people in his life fell away when he worked- his parents, Mycroft, and even John tended to get pushed to the background when they were not around to remind him of themselves. Sherlock could not seem to go a day without thinking of Rose, however. Sometimes she came to mind several times a day. Everything seemed to remind him of her.

It shouldn't surprise him that she would come to his mind now, Sherlock thought. The woman who had infiltrated the monastery had been nothing like her save that she'd had dark eyes and blonde hair. This last was natural, unlike Rose. She'd had her head shaved, as he had, but he'd been able to tell by the lightness of the hair on her arms and the stubble that occasionally appeared on her skull that her hair would grow in flaxen. She had, however, begged him for mercy by attempting to appeal to his sexual nature.

Just the thought caused Sherlock to shudder- that spiders-over-the-skin feeling returning.

Nine weeks without Rose, and he craved her touch, but he felt no desire to substitute hers for another's. Particularly when the other was a piece of Moriarty's web.

When he'd left her in that dingy hotel room in Bergen, Sherlock had told her that he would think of her always. He had expected to do so consciously- to take time every day and think about Rose Tyler. Perhaps even before he went to sleep every night, like a prayer. He did not believe in gods, and he did not believe in men, but he did believe in the strength that Rose gave him.

It wasn't like that, however. She appeared in his thoughts without his conscious permission. Strange things made her appear, too- he would be tying the laces on his boots, and suddenly it would be her hands lacing her boots, getting dressed one random morning. Something would make him laugh, and it would be her laugh he would hear instead. He would catch a flash of pink from the corner of his eye, and she would be there, before his eyes. And still, before he went to sleep every night, he brought her forward to guide himself down from consciousness.

Sherlock looked up and found, to his surprise, that he had made it to the meeting place five miles from the monastery. It was often that way, he found. He would begin thinking of Rose and time would pass without his attention. He supposed he was lucky that he had not put his foot wrong on the mountain path and broken his leg, but he'd always been a lucky man. As a child, his father had said he'd had a guardian angel. Mycroft had scoffed at the idea, but it had gotten its hooks into Sherlock's mind- as did so many things his father had said over his life.

Sherlock approached the entrance to the rock formation to which he had been directed. The abbot at the monastery had been remarkably worldly, and in Mycroft's employ. The older man had showed Sherlock the path to take on a small tablet computer's GPS map, and when Sherlock had raised his eyebrows at the technology, the man had smiled his enigmatic smile.

"We choose to leave the world when we come here, my friend," he had said, patting Sherlock's hand. "But- and you know this better than most- a person who chooses to leave the world behind is often running from something. It behoves an Abbot to be aware of the world so that I might keep my flock safe. Your brother facilitates that, and I, in turn, keep his flock safe when necessary." The old man's dark eyes had met Sherlock's light ones. "I kept you safe, and in turn, you have kept me safe. You will be welcome back at any time, if you like, with or without the name of Mycroft Holmes on your lips."

Sherlock had bowed to the man and taken his leave, but he'd had more to say. As Sherlock had approached the door, the Abbot had continued.

"People come here for many reasons, as I say. You've run from things all your life, I think. There was a time this place would have been right for you. A time when you had more to run from than to run to. I think that is not the case now. I think you deserve to be congratulated."

Sherlock turned in surprise to see the older man smiling.

"Don't stay away too long."

"Grandmama, what big teeth you have."

Sherlock glance up at the voice in the dark on the outskirts of Tibet quoting fairy tales in rough Russian.

"All the better to eat you with, my dear," he answered, his Russian technically perfect and un-accented.

"You're late." This was barked in English, the accent such an amalgam that Sherlock was not able to pick it apart from that short sentence.

"You can tell Mycroft-"

"My employer prefers not to be identified," was the growling interruption. Sherlock could not see the man's face, so deep in shadow was he standing, but he could tell that the man was tall- probably another six or seven inches taller than he, and nearly six inches broader at the shoulder as well.

"You can tell _Mycroft_ that he could probably keep me in line better if he would allow me to go back to London."

"You've a new assignment."

"Naturally," Sherlock sighed as a large envelope slapped down faultlessly onto a rock in a shaft of moonlight.

"Your reports of the assignment you just finished?"

Eastern Europe, some time in Canada, and possibly South America, Central Africa, and the Middle East, Sherlock decided about the man's accent.

He walked over to the rock and picked up the envelope, replacing it with the one from under his clothes. In it was a piece of precious cargo that Mycroft would have to see delivered. The threat that came with it was quite explicit.

"Have you any news?" Sherlock asked. It had been a requirement of his before leaving England that he get updates on how Rose, John, and his parents were doing.

"Your parents are well and are considering remodelling the kitchen. John Watson hired a new receptionist at the clinic, a woman named Mary. Mickey Smith is engaged to Martha Jones. Your brother has lost five pounds-"

"And two inches from his hairline, no doubt. You know who I want to hear about."

The man continued listing as though by rote. "Anthony Tyler celebrated his sixth birthday and received a 10-speed bicycle…"

Sherlock could tell that this was Mycroft's little revenge and did not attempt to interrupt again.

"Martha-Louise Hudson has re-started her use of herbal supplements for her joint pain. Molly Hooper is being promoted to lead pathologist at St. Bart's. Rose Tyler has been to London twice, once on assignment and once for her own reasons."

"That everything?" Sherlock asked, though he knew it was. Mycroft would have instructed his toady to leave Rose's information until the very last to annoy his brother.

All he received to the affirmative was a grunt- his friend seemed to have run out of steam.

"Have you my bag?"

Another grunt and a black rucksack appeared in the same shaft of moonlight the envelope had done.

"Well then, I suppose that's everything. I can't say it's been a pleasure. Give Mycroft my most sincere greetings."


	4. John Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Fanfiction Friday. A lot of you have asked what John's up to these days, and I thought I'd let you all know.**

John leaned back in his chair with a sigh. It had been a mad day at the clinic and he had piles of paperwork to finish up now that he'd seen the last patient, but he could not keep his mind on it.

All day as he'd answered questions and done examinations, his thoughts had been half on the package that had arrived at his new flat the night before. It had been redirected from Baker Street, and even seeing that address had made John sit with the package on the table, staring at it from across the room as though touching it would bring back all the pain of the previous year.

He'd returned to therapy. He'd moved out of Baker Street. He'd dedicated himself to his medical practice. He was healing. Why had some stupid box with his old address brought everything back?

He'd finally talked himself into opening it, and that had just made things worse. He wished he'd gone with his first instinct and chucked the whole thing into the fire the moment he saw that fateful address.

 _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It had to be a prank. A trick. Someone's idea of a clever joke.

The blog had been silent for almost a year, and the Baskerville case had been over two years past. Even Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson had stopped trying to call. No one remembered the name of John Watson as it pertained to Sherlock Holmes (exonerated of all charges against him save for the foolishness of loving the wrong person) except, apparently, someone with a rather sick sense of humour.

The story was like the Baskerville case, but different. Rose and Mickey weren't in it, obviously, and it was set in the late 19th century. His character was a bit more bumbling and foolish, and Sherlock's was more genteel, but the bones were there. He had no idea what it meant.

He'd looked up the author's name. Arthur Conan Doyle (no knighthood) had been a late-nineteenth, early-twentieth century spiritualist. Sherlock would have scoffed at the man's credentials, and the thought made John's stomach twist.

He pulled the book from his briefcase and turned it over in his hands. The story was good, he'd noted. Well-written, exciting, funny, a bit scary, and satisfyingly concluded. To his knowledge, it had been accurate for the time, except for the mentions of the monarchy. The monarchy which had fallen a century before the book claimed to have been published.

No, John did not know what to make of it, and he did not know what to do with it. Were he still Sherlock Holmes' right hand, he might have taken it to an expert in 19th century literature. He might have taken it to a rare books dealer. He might have had the binding, the paper, and the leather examined by experts.

He was not Sherlock's partner any longer, however. Sherlock was dead and no matter how much the hatred for his friend's killer burned in John's chest, he could not ascribe the book to her. She was cold, she was calculating, but she was not cruel. She wasn't like Moriarty or even Sherlock himself.

Like they had been. They were both dead now.

Even so, he was sure- call it gut instinct- that the book would not lead back to her. He considered taking it to Mycroft, just in case. Mycroft was running the manhunt for Rose Tyler, but there were two pitfalls in that plan. The first was seeing Mycroft. Another reminder of the old life that John was trying to hard to forget. A man who looked like his old friend. A man who thought like his old friend. No, it was too painful.

The other was more complicated. If he showed anyone else the book, he'd have to admit that it had him scared. It was written in the voice of one John Watson, army doctor. He didn't give many details of himself in that story, but there was enough to make John wary. Could he have written it? Could he be suffering fugue states? Could he be going mad?

No. He wanted to hide the book away and never look at it again.

"John? Dr. Watson?"

He looked up and there was his new receptionist, Mary Morstan, in the doorway of his office.

"Yes, Mary?"

"Sorry to bother you, but there's one late arrival. I'd tell them to come back tomorrow, but it's a bit of an emergency."

"No, no, that's fine. Send them on in." John stood and stretched out his muscles. He hadn't been working on his paperwork anyway, there was no reason he couldn't help one last patient. He turned to find Mary still standing just inside the door.

"Can I help you with something?"

"No! No, it's just that I... I was wondering... do you want to get a coffee sometime? After work maybe? Or at lunch, that'd be fine too."

"No," John said, his response immediate and thoughtless.

"Oh... right. Of course not. No problem then that's-"

"My doctor says I can't have coffee. Makes me too nervous. I'd love to take you to dinner sometime though."

She smiled at him then, and he smiled back and, for the first time all day, he forgot about the mysterious book in his bag.


	5. Rose Tyler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Yes, it's another Rose chapter. It's also the building-blocks of what's going to be the main thread of the next big storyline I'll be writing.**
> 
> **Hope you're all having a lovely Fanfiction Friday!**

Nowhere in the universe- any universe- tasted like London. Some odd combination of air pollution, history, greasy food, and unpleasant weather.

Rose slipped through the streets like a ghost, technology making her essentially invisible and rendered unnecessary by the fog. Mother Nature seemed to take vicious joy in her victory by lowering the temperature another degree as Rose clutched her inadequate jacket around herself and cursed under her breath.

She was in London for work, though she had, perhaps, been more eager than the assignment warranted. The Time Agency wanted their equipment back from their retired agent, but they'd made it clear that they were in no great rush. Rose had jumped at the chance to return home, however. She'd had too many close calls with tears in the last week. Siger's smile was too similar to Sherlock's, and it had been a long time since she'd seen or heard from him.

Things in the Holmes household had mostly calmed. Rose and Violet had found a mutual love of both Charles Dickens and Kurt Vonnegut and had been able to discuss those men, rather than the one they both missed the most. Siger had proven a credulous repository for Rose's stories and it was cathartic to have someone to tell.

It did not change the fact that being retired to the countryside was stultifying. She'd been called in by Torchwood once, on a matter of a crashed spaceship in Hyde Park. Like something out of Douglas Adams, however, the aliens (Dvorians) had been about three centimetres high, and their spaceship had looked very much like a Frisbee. They'd been carted off by a West Highland Terrier, much to their terror, by the time Rose had gotten there, and the most difficult part of the trip had been negotiating with the dog until Jake had purchased a sandwich from a cart and traded the beast for the spaceship.

She'd come again a few weeks later just to get away. She was a city girl at heart and excessive quantities of clean air and quiet made her uncomfortable. She'd come back to the city to breathe the filthy air, walk the convoluted streets, and listen to the press of humanity that never really ceased.

This time, however, there might be something exciting. She'd thought it before and been proven wrong, but hope springs eternal. Before she could get started on it, however, she had something she needed to do, and she turned her feet toward Pall Mall.

Into the great house, up the stairs and to the doorway of the office that she'd come to know surprisingly well she moved unseen. The owner of the office, however, spoke without looking up.

"Good evening, Ms. Tyler. How fare my parents?"

Rose grinned. "Well done, Mr. Holmes." She turned off her perception filter so that he would be able to see her. "What gave me away?"

"You smell of the rain."

"Just fog for now."

"The Thames will try to crawl from its borders for as long as London stands."

"I suppose." Rose peeled her damp jacket from her shoulders and hung it on the coat rack by the door. "Your parents are well. They're thinking of coming up. Asked me to ask you about getting them tickets to _Cats_ while it's here. They want you to come too."

"Absolutely not."

Rose smiled again and sat on the chair that faced Mycroft's desk. "I'll let them know that even after four months without so much a phone call you still refuse to look into tickets for the three of you."

Mycroft glared at her. "You seem to find this very amusing."

"The only reason that you don't is that you have an under-developed sense of humour. Also, you're dangerously close to having to see _Cats_ , so I suppose I can forgive you your lack of perspective."

"Of all the obsessions they could have had, why musical theatre?"

Rose shook her head. "Really, Mycroft, you'd do this with anything they tried to get you to do with them. You and Sherlock are such children sometimes. Now don't pout, you know it's true. I checked though, and _Sweeney Todd_ is touring around the same time. Tell them you couldn't get tickets to _Cats_ , and suggest that as an alternative. The music and story are much better. You'll probably even like it if you allow yourself to."

Rather than looking pleased, Mycroft only glared harder. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because _Cats_ is a terrible musical?"

"But why are you helping me? You don't like me."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Unlike some people I could mention, I am an adult and do not have to allow the fact that I dislike a person to cause me to treat them badly. Besides, I like you fine. You're practically family, after all."

Rose glanced at her watch and, so doing, missed Mycroft's face going pale and his mouth falling open like a codfish.

"Blimey, I've actually got to go," she said, standing and getting her coat back down. "I'm in London with a purpose this time, and I've got to meet Mickey. You look into those tickets for your mum. Don't think you won't hear from me if you don't, got it?"

Mycroft nodded dumbly.

"So long then, Mike," she said with a last grin before vanishing from sight.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose's equipment indicated that her target (or at least her target's equipment) was north of Fellows Road, some three miles from Mycroft's rooms. Despite the chill and the damp, she would walk.

As she moved north through the quiet (but not silent) evening, Rose realized where her feet were taking her without her conscious input. She was going to Baker Street.

She considered taking another direction to avoid the memories of easier days, but could not bring herself to do it and was soon at his door.

She stood at the bottom of the steps for several long minutes wishing that she could go in and climb the creaky steps and find him there just the way he had always been. He'd be grouchy at the weather forcing him to stay indoors, probably desperate for a cup of tea that he'd be unwilling to make for himself. Maybe he'd be elbow-deep in an experiment with poisons or cigarette ash or corpse pieces. It was late enough that John would be home unless he had plans for the evening. The three of them might share dinner. Open a bottle of wine. Talk. Laugh.

Rose shook her head to dispel the pretty fantasy and backtracked to the alley that cut behind the street. From there she could peek into Mrs. Hudson's rooms through a crack in her curtain.

She was there- a trashy talk show on the telly, her crochet hook working quickly between her fingers, a cup of tea at her elbow.

Rose's heart broke for her. She looked paler than Rose liked to see, and sadder. She looked well enough however. Mycroft was meant to be keeping an eye on her to be sure of that, but Rose had wanted to check. She would have put it past him to keep a problem from her to keep her from having an excuse to return to London more often.

She wished that John had stayed, if for no other reason than to keep Mrs. Hudson company, but she understood. She knew that Sherlock was alive and yet the memories simply from standing outside the building were bordering on overwhelming.

"Take care of yourself, Mrs. Hudson," she murmured, then turned and continued north toward the future tech.

Walking through the mist in Regent's Park, Rose remembered other nights with Sherlock, walking through the trees and paths. Sometimes he just needed to move- make his body do something while his mind worked. Those times he talked to her, working out the details of his cases or experiments as she kept up with his long legs on the winding paths. Other times- night when his hands shook and his eyes were haunted- she talked instead. Those were the nights that she told him about her childhood, her mistakes, her fears. They brought him out of his head and back into the world where he was comfortable.

She missed him as though he were a part of her. Her second heart, she supposed with a small smile. Everyone had one, she thought, and Time Lords were, perhaps, both lucky and unlucky that theirs were not kept by another person. Humans had chosen a different path- allow another person to walk about with your second heart in their chest and trust in luck and circumstance that you would, one day, find it.

Sherlock would laugh at her for those musings, she was sure, but he wasn't here to do it, so she allowed them to distract her the whole way across the park.

Once she reached the other side, Rose took out her monitoring device again. The tech was moving, but not fast and not far. It looked like her Time Agent was still carrying it around, but Rose had expected that. They usually did.

As the neighbourhood went from posh, park-view flats to more modest places, Rose wondered to herself where John was now. He lived in this neighbourhood now, since he'd moved away from Baker Street. Mickey had told her that they'd run into each other at the hospital a time or two. John did not acknowledge the man who'd been his friend for over a year with anything but a glare, but it had been good to know that he was well.

Rose began to move faster as she got closer, checking her equipment at every street corner to be sure that she was still going to the right place. When she found it, she smiled. It was a little Greek café that smelled good enough to make Rose's stomach rumble. She resolved to talk Mickey into getting her some chips when she met up with him later.

She passed in front of the windows, looking inside. They were fogged, slightly, from the warmth inside coming in contact with the cool of the night, but she could see well enough to not rub a patch clear. It was too easy to be spotted that way. The restaurant was small, intimate, and lit only by a candle in the centre of each table. Rose saw no one sitting alone- it appeared to be a date spot.

Rose had been given a picture of the ex-time agent with the other information about the case and scanned the patrons in the candle-lit space for the small, slim woman with blonde hair, angular features, and large eyes that had looked up at her from the pages of her assignment.

Rose gasped and quickly ducked into the alley beside the restaurant, trying to process what she had seen- what she _could not_ have seen.

Her time agent was in the restaurant, just as she had suspected, but across from her, smiling, laughing, and pouring deep red wine from a bottle that they were obviously sharing into the glass in front of her was John Watson.


	6. Mary Morstan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Answers to some of your burning questions!**

Mary sighed happily as John walked away after a lingering goodbye kiss. It had been a rather perfect evening, and if he'd wanted to, she'd have been happy to let him stay the night. He had been a perfect gentleman, however, as men when she was from so seldom were.

"I suppose I'm lucky he didn't stay the night."

The voice came from nowhere and about two metres to the right of her. Mary turned, but knew that there was no one there. No one had been there when last she'd looked, about six seconds before, and no one was there now.

"Perception filters are considered amateur when tailing someone, you know," she said, conversationally to the thin air.

"I've nothing to prove here, and I stick out a bit, unfortunately."

"Are you from the Time Agency?"

"Torchwood, actually, but the Agency hired us, yeah. Mind if I come in? Bit odd, this, if someone were to walk up, you know?"

Mary sighed. It wasn't as though she wanted to keep the tech or anything, so there was no harm in allowing the person in. At least, if they were from Torchwood there was probably not harm.

"Fine, fine. Go ahead," she said grudgingly, unlocking and opening the door for the unseen person. She felt something move past her into the flat and followed after it, closing and locking the door behind her.

When she turned, there was someone standing in her flat. Mary had expected something more unique based on the strength of her perception filter- she'd anticipated a Silurian at a minimum, she'd heard Torchwood worked with them on occasion.

Instead it was an ordinary, apparently-human girl, a few years younger than she was. She was nothing peculiar, and would have blended in perfectly. Mary was about to say something to that effect when recognition finally set in.

"Oh. My. God," she said, gaping. "You're Rose Tyler!"

The woman's dark brows scrunched together in confusion. "Have we met?"

"No, but you're famous!"

"Right… the murder thing… look, I know you're friends with John and all but-"

Mary cut her off. "No! I know you didn't do it! I know all about you, you're a legend and I'm a big fan!"

"A fan? Of me?"

"Of all of you! Sherlock Holmes and Rose Tyler and John Watson- solving mysteries and being clever and saving the day. They were always my favourite stories as a kid."

"Stories?"

"But I never knew you worked for Torchwood! That's amazing. It's never mentioned in the stories, but I suppose it wouldn't be. Secret organization and all, don't want to publish all your secrets on a blog!"

"Wait. Stop. Stop right there." The young woman's wide eyes were suddenly sharp and focussed. "You're telling me that there are stories about John, Sherlock, and me that are available in the," she glanced down at a small device in her hand which appeared to have some information on it, "28th century?"

"Yeah! They're brilliant and…" Mary suddenly trailed off, realization finally dawning. "And I just told you about them. I just told you-"

"My future, yeah. And you're dating someone whose future you know- don't think I didn't see you and John at the restaurant. That's stupid. No, it's more than stupid, it's dangerous. Not a very good time agent, are you?"

Mary glanced away at the censure in the other woman's voice. "I've never done something like that before. I guess I was just…"

"Reckless?"

Mary nodded. "And I'm relieved, I guess. That it's you. That it's Torchwood and not the Agency. I've been expecting them to swoop down and… I've done something wrong." Mary could hear the swish of the coat the woman was wearing as she crossed her arms, but she didn't say anything.

"I may have caused… I mean… I didn't intend to… It just happened, okay?"

She glanced up and the woman was still standing, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised as though telling her to go on.

"Right… back to the beginning I suppose. I left the Time Agency willingly, they didn't throw me out or anything, so I got to choose where I was going to go- it could be anywhere except home, so I chose Earth, 21st century."

"Because of the Sherlock Holmes stories?"

Mary shrugged. "In part, yeah, but there are lots of stories from this era in my time. Harry Potter's a favourite of mine as well. The original, not the re-write from 2567."

"But those are fiction."

Mary glanced up. "Honestly, I thought the Holmes and Tyler stories were fiction as well. No one could possibly be that clever or brave."

The other woman frowned, and Mary saw the first wavering of her anger.

"So I had to pick a name and get a job, right? Well, why not a name from one of the stories. I knew it'd be several years before the Holmes stories were published so I thought I'd use one of those names. I considered Rose Tyler and Molly Hooper and even Irene Adler, but I ended up choosing Mary Morstan."

"And who is Mary Morstan?"

Mary looked away. She hated what she was about to say, but it had been an honest mistake. "John Watson's wife."

"Oh my god," Rose moaned and Mary could tell that she was beginning to see where this was going.

"And then I got a job as a receptionist in a clinic," Mary hurriedly continued. "Nothing big, right? I had enough medical training to come across as a nurse and then, all of a sudden, I'm being introduced to my new boss and it's John Watson. And then I find out that Sherlock Holmes and Rose Tyler, they're real! And I'm working for _the_ John Watson. And I've got the name of his wife. Who he's not met yet."

"Except he has, hasn't he?" Rose asked, shaking her head.

Mary nodded.

"How could you?" Rose exploded, angry now. "How could you do this? You know better- you don't come to a time and place without a bit of research. What were you thinking? It's reckless! It's dangerous! It's…" Rose hesitated, taking Mary in carefully. "Oh god, you're in love with him, aren't you?"

Again, Mary nodded.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You could tell the Time Agency," Mary suggested. "It's too late for them to take me out, it's a circular paradox and I'm a part of established events now but… well… they'd take my memories, render me safe. They do that sometimes- a few months or years. It's not really pleasant."

"I know. Happened to a friend of mine once."

The bleakness in Rose's tone made Mary look at her again. "Yeah… only it wouldn't just be a few months or years for me… I was a kid when I first read those books. It would be most of my life they'd be taking."

"That's horrible."

"Yeah… but I'm not sure it's the wrong thing to do. It'd render me safe- unable to change events that I already know. Leaving me with my memories makes me a walking time-bomb, literally. I could, potentially, destroy time."

"I know."

"But, on the other side, there's the question of taking every memory I have between when I was 13 and now… will I still be the same person, and will he still want to marry me?"

Rose sighed. "Does John love you?"

Mary blinked in surprise. "He… hasn't said it but… he smiles more when he's with me. He talks more. He laughs. He's been fighting depression and anxiety since Sherlock… left, but he's doing better now. I think… I think he'll love me eventually."

"Then that's it, isn't it? I'm not going to risk John's happiness, not again. I won't tell the Time Agency, but I am going to tell Torchwood. That means you're not alone if something goes wrong with time, but at least it isn't the Agency."

Mary's eyes widened in shock. "You're…"

"Going to let you keep your memories? Going to let you stay with John? Yeah… guess I am."

Without a thought, Mary flew into her arms. "Thank you," she whispered, near to tears.

Rose disentangled herself. "Two things you have to promise me, all right? Before you marry him, you have to tell him the truth. Not all of the truth… I don't know if you'll ever be able to be completely honest again, but as much as you can tell him. You have to be honest. I won't have him marrying someone he can't trust."

"Yeah… yeah, okay. And the second thing?"

For the first time since she'd entered Mary's flat, Rose Tyler smiled. "You can't marry him until Sherlock and I can come back and stand up with you."


	7. Mickey Smith and Martha Jones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Ah yes, something so fluffy it'll make your teeth ache. I hope you're ready.**
> 
> **For any of you who are reading the _other_ story that I update weekly, this is just the antidote that the Doctor ordered.**
> 
> **Happy Fanfiction Friday!**

Mickey smiled as he stepped into their suite. Martha was in the shower, and the whole room smelled of warmth and her vanilla and almond shower gel. Mickey loved the beach, the smell of the ocean, the feel of the sun, but nothing made him quite as happy as walking into their room and the fact that it smelled just the same as their room at home.

Torchwood had insisted that he take six weeks, just like Rose. Unlike Rose, however, it had taken no extortion to convince him to take the time. He'd called in a favour from Pete's travel agent from Bergen and he and Martha had hopped a Zeppelin to the Grecian coast almost as soon as they'd gotten back to London.

Mickey sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the small, velvet-covered box from the table on his side. He'd carried it with him nearly constantly since they'd arrived, waiting for the right moment to give it to her. To ask the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for months, only to be postponed by the fate of the universe.

Not anymore, he swore. He would have his answer from her before they returned to London.

He grinned as Martha started humming in the shower. That meant he probably had about five minutes before she turned off the water, and 10 before she stepped out of the steamy bathroom. He tossed on some clothes (something nice, because it was important, but not too nice, because it was vacation) and ran his hand over his short-cropped hair, making a note to visit the barber when they returned to London.

He was ready to go when Martha emerged from the bathroom. He was not, however, ready for what her appearance did to him.

They'd been together for three years and he thought she was beautiful, but sometimes, and it never made sense exactly when, she caught him off guard and he saw her again just like the first time and was struck again by how lovely she was.

She'd had her hair braided in the first few days they'd been in Greece, and the style suited her. She'd pulled the braids back into a complicated knot at the base of her neck, leaving her lovely face on display. She hadn't yet put makeup on (she would wait for the bathroom mirror to clear of steam), and she was still in her bathrobe, long legs and turquoise-painted toes on display underneath.

And perhaps that was it, Mickey thought. For the two weeks they'd been there, she'd mostly worn the resort's bathrobes- thick, luxurious, terry cloth things in stark white. Now, however, she was wearing her own robe, the one she'd brought with her from London. It was old, faded, and green. Somehow, that ratty old robe cemented everything in his mind. He wanted Martha Jones, not just when they were in Greece, or when the universe was ending, any other special time. He wanted her in the mornings when she was grouchy from late nights on A&E, and when she came out of the shower in her ratty dressing gown, and when she burned toast.

And he could only hope that she wanted him the same way.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" she asked with a crooked grin even as she went to the wardrobe to pull out her outfit for the evening.

"How am I looking at you?"

"Like you want to do something that'll mess up all the effort I just put into my hair."

Mickey grinned. "I never say no, but that's not how I'm looking at you."

"No?"

"Nope." He popped the final 'p' as Rose and the Doctor had always done.

"All right then, you tell me. How are you looking at me?"

Mickey swallowed hard. "I'm looking at you like you're the most beautiful woman I've ever met. I'm looking at you like you're the only woman I want to see again, for the rest of my life." He pulled the box from his pocket and looked down at it. "If you want."

Martha had turned to fully face him, all of her attention on him. Her eyes were wide, and there was no smile on her face.

"What are you saying, Mickey?"

He stood and went over to her, stroking the side of her face with his hand.

"I'm saying that I want you, and only you, until the universe comes crashing down around our ears. I want forever, whatever that means, with you." He opened the box and showed her the contents. "If you'd have me."

She looked up from the box in his hand, tears sparkling in her eyes, and a surprised grin on her face. "If I'd have you? You daft git. Was there any doubt?"

"Well… you haven't said-"

"Shut up, Mickey," she said, and pulled him down to kiss her.

He pulled away after a long, intense moment. "So… that's a yes?"

Martha rolled her eyes, even as he took her left hand and slid the ring onto her hand.

"Of course it's a yes, idiot," she said, employing his favourite insult for himself.

"Ah, but I'm _your_ idiot now. You're stuck with me."

"Good."


	8. Molly Hooper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Fanfiction Friday, everyone!**

The fluorescent bulbs in the morgue took a moment to flicker and fizz before the light reached its full intensity. Molly took a deep breath- it was her first day as the lead pathologist, which meant a bigger office, a bit more money, and a lot more weight around the hospital. Her new office was actually attached to the morgue, rather than half a corridor away now, but even the proximity of the dead could not puncture her buoyant mood at the trajectory her life was taking.

She unlocked the door to her new office and slid off her coat to hang on the door. Much of her day would be spent moving her things from her old office into this new one, and she was excited to start.

"Good morning, Molly," came a voice from the morgue.

Molly let out a little shriek as she had been alone with the corpses only an instant before.

"Gods, sorry… should have thought of that," the voice came again and, a moment later, Rose Tyler appeared at Molly's side.

"What are you doing here?" Molly asked, voice just shy of hysterical. She punched the other woman's arm as hard as she could, furious with her and buzzing over with adrenaline.

Rose rubbed her arm where Molly had hit her and looked contrite. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about it. I just heard about your promotion and wanted to congratulate you."

"What?"

Rose looked even guiltier. "I just… well I heard that you'd gotten a promotion and wanted to say 'well done.' And… well… check in that you were all right. Things haven't been too bad for you since… well… since I last saw you?" She left the fact that she'd last seen Molly the day that she had apparently killed Sherlock Holmes unsaid.

For a long moment, Molly gaped at her. Rose shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

"You came out from wherever you've been hiding for the last eight months to… to check on me?"

"Er…" Rose began, but Molly's phone chose that moment to chime with a new text. "Oh, that reminds me! That'll probably be Greg. There'll be a body in this morning that's a Torchwood problem. That's why I'm in London, actually. Mickey'll be in with Greg to go over it all, but I thought I'd warn you."

Rose glanced at her watch. "I ought to be going, but it was good to see you, Molly. Like I say, congratulations on the promotion and… take care of yourself, all right?"

When Molly nodded dumbly, Rose smiled at her and then vanished into thin air.

~?~?~?~?~

Molly was humming to herself as she gathered her things into her purse to leave for the night.

"You look pretty tonight. Do you have a date?"

Molly jumped and her keys clattered to the floor.

"Why do you do that? Can't you just walk in and say hello like a normal person? Bad as Sherlock Holmes, you are," she complained as she reached down to scoop them back up. When she had straightened, Rose was leaning against the door of her office, smiling.

"Wanted killer, hard to just wander about St. Bart's in the open."

Molly rolled her eyes. "And yet here you are to check on my makeup routine?"

"Not at all, though your makeup does look lovely. He's a lucky bloke, but you probably knew that already. Anyway I was just in town for… well, 'couple of reasons. Nothing terribly important and… thought I'd drop by."

"Has something happened?" Molly asked. It seemed strange that Rose Tyler would drop in for no real reason.

"No. Just… well… I should go. Shouldn't really be here, but I wanted to… never mind. Enjoy your date tonight, okay, Molly?"

"Yeah…" Molly said as she frowned at Rose.

Rose got up and started walking out of the morgue, but Molly stopped her.

"Rose? Are you doing okay? Are you alright since… everything happened?"

Rose gave a small smile. "I'm always alright, Molly, never you fear."

Molly watched her until she vanished, confusion writ over her face.

~?~?~?~?~

Molly kissed Tom goodbye at the entrance to the morgue after lunch before he left to return to the newspaper offices.

"He's quite good-looking."

She didn't even jump this time- really, she was coming to expect it.

"You've got your own bloke, leave mine out of things."

Rose appeared, sitting at Molly's desk with a cheeky smile on her face.

"Just because I've got a bloke doesn't mean I can't enjoy the aesthetic appeal of yours, Molly. Besides, I've no idea where mine is, so I've got to live vicariously through you."

Molly had been stripping off her coat, but stopped to stare at Rose.

"What do you mean you don't know where he is?"

She shook her head and waved her hand vaguely over her head.

"Scarpered to save the world just after the stars came back. No clue what he's about now, no one'll tell me anything. 'Swhy I'm still in hiding, really. All I know is that he's alive, and it's like pulling teeth to even get that. But that's not important, tell me about your bloke. How'd you meet him?"

"You didn't go with him?" Molly asked, surprised. From what she knew of Rose Tyler, the woman would have happily gone to save the world.

"Practically had to tie me down and drug me to do it, but no," she said, dismissively. "Your bloke though? You know John's seeing someone now too?"

"I… no. I didn't. Who is it?"

"Receptionist at his clinic. I… er… I know her. Odd that, really. Surreal. They're doing well though, from what I can gather."

"Well that's good, John's had a hard time of it," Molly said with a sigh.

"He has, yeah," Rose agreed. "And so have you, so I'm glad you're seeing someone as well. Go on then, I saw the way you were smiling at him. You want to talk about it, so why not tell someone who isn't even technically here?"

Molly bit her lower lip and then, without warning, a grin came over her face.

"We're having loads of sex," she said, nearly blushing.

Rose threw back her head and laughed. "Fantastic. Good sex, I hope. Not wasting your time with bad sex, are you?"

"Never."

"Brilliant."

~?~?~?~?~

Molly finished her last report and sent it to print in the workroom down the hall before snapping her laptop shut and sliding it into her bag. She threw away the cardboard cup with the last cold dregs of her last cup of coffee, grabbed her coat off the back of the door and locked her office behind her.

She stood for a long moment in the morgue, running a seasoned eye over everything to be certain that nothing was out of place.

She half expected a disembodied voice with some wry observation or cheerful quip, but nothing came. It had been almost four months since the last time Rose Tyler had shown up in the morgue. Before that it had never been more than about nine weeks between visits.

Molly was slightly surprised to find that she missed the other girl.

They'd started off on awkward footing- Rose having the man that Molly wanted, and Molly being a bit resentful of Rose, but she now found herself wishing for the other woman's company more and more often.

Tom would sometimes say something, and Molly would want to relay it to Rose, or she'd be alone at the hospital after-hours, and wish for company that was usually in the form of the mysterious woman. She had, without realizing it, come to think of Rose Tyler as a friend.

As a friend, Molly was worried about her. She had no idea where the Vitex heiress was staying while she hid from the things that she hadn't done. All she knew was that Rose hadn't been caught. The police would have wanted that splashed on the front pages of every paper in the country, and Tom would be among the first to know, and Molly quickly thereafter.

Molly sighed and crossed to the entrance to the morgue to shut off the lights and leave. She'd stop by the workroom and grab her report to drop off on her director's desk as she left the hospital. When the lights flickered off and she'd locked the door behind her, Molly turned to find someone standing behind her, holding her report.

"Heard the printer going as I passed, so I took a look and saw your name on it," Rose said, holding out the papers. "Thought I'd bring it to you to save you the effort."

Molly threw her arms around Rose in a hug.


	9. Greg Lestrade and Philip Anderson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **There's only one more of these after this one.**
> 
> **I promised the first installment of the next big story at the end of next month, and I am still trying to manage that, but I am helping to plan my sister's wedding, and I've been sick for a week now, so I'm really not writing as quickly as is typical for me. This is a pre-emptive apology, in case I don't make it.**
> 
> **Hope you all are well, and enjoy the chapter!**
> 
> **Happy Fanfiction Friday!**

Greg tipped back his beer, hoping that if he finished his drink, he could reasonably leave the maddening conversation.

"But it's so obvious!" Phillip said, just a tiny bit manic, and recalling the object of their conversation. "You can follow his path through South Asia, up through Russia, in the former Soviet Block… he's on the move, and he's coming back, can't you see it?"

"Anderson, Sherlock Holmes is dead, has been for the best part of two years," Lestrade said, heavily. "There's a massive manhunt for Rose Tyler because she killed him in front of dozens of witnesses. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"But that's just it, isn't it? Rose Tyler would never have killed him, would she?"

Lestrade rolled his eyes and settled in for another of Anderson's wild theories. The man was full of them. For some reason, once the stars had come back, he'd become obsessed with the idea that Sherlock had been a part of whatever had brought them back. It was absurd, naturally, as Sherlock had been, rather publicly, outed as having no knowledge whatsoever of the stars.

"Rose Tyler headed that alien-hunting organization, Torchwood, right?" Philip said, the light in his eyes just slightly deranged.

"Oh for-" Lestrade sputtered. "Aliens now? Torchwood was a joke. A government mistake."

"But what if they weren't?"

Lestrade sighed. "Did you read any of the rubbish that came out about them? They were a joke!"

"But what if that's just what they _want_ us to think?" Anderson said, mysteriously.

"Who's they?"

"The government."

Lestrade shook his head. He needed something stronger than beer to deal with this. Whiskey might do in a pinch, but arsenic was more the speed he was thinking.

"The government," Lestrade said, not even trying to hide his scepticism.

"Right, exactly! Maybe the government doesn't want the population to know about the aliens so they discredited Torchwood!"

"Moriarty spilled Torchwood's secrets," Lestrade said, shaking his head.

"That's what they want us to think. But imagine this: Rose Tyler has access to alien tech. And why shouldn't that include some kind of gravity… inertia… damper thing, mmm? Then she could throw Sherlock off the roof and know he'd be fine, right?"

"And she also has some alien tech to make him look dead enough to fool a pathologist as good as Molly?"

"But that's the trick!" Anderson was in the zone now, flailing his hands wildly as he explained. "Molly's in on it as well! She and Sherlock have been friends for ages."

"Yeah, and she's half-mad for him. She and Rose were always in competition with each other, you know? No way she'd do that for her."

"But she'd do it for Sherlock?"

Lestrade sighed again. "Really? Forge documents? Risk her career and her freedom? Seriously? For some bloke who already has a girlfriend?"

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "You're mad, you are. Just get it through your head: Sherlock Holmes is dead. Rose Tyler isn't what any of us thought she was. It's long past time to move on."

"But-"

"Do you really believe that if you come up with enough stupid theories that it'll bring him back?"

Anderson frowned, then straightened, as though to make a serious declaration. "I believe in Sherlock Holmes."

Lestrade shook his head. "Well that won't bring him back."

With that, Lestrade pulled out his wallet and tossed a few notes on the table, then got up to leave.

"Have a good night," he said, as he walked out.

Anderson watched him go, a measure of sadness in him as he saw the slump of Greg's shoulders. He knew that his old boss had liked both Rose and Sherlock, which was why he'd thought his theories might find fertile ground in him. He'd been wrong. Every new theory had just upset Lestrade more.

He sighed and looked down at the map again. He was certain of it, even if Lestrade couldn't see it. After two years, Sherlock Holmes was coming back.


	10. Mycroft Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Fanfiction Friday!**

Mycroft Holmes sat back in his chair and glared into the air just above his desk, wondering what to do.

He was not a man often given to questioning himself, but circumstances being what they were, the consequences of doing what appeared to be the best course might be more dire than they seemed.

The report on his desk was of the sort that Mycroft, had he been a less sensible, knowledgeable man, might have hoped would never cross his desk again. However, as a man of the world he had known it would come. He could wish that problems like this would remain restricted to America, the Middle East, anywhere but his homeland, but he knew that they would not.

Home-grown terrorists, a plot to blow up parliament- it was almost cliche, really. Very Guy Fawkes.

His contacts in the ministry had provided him with a list of counter-terrorism experts and a few organizations that would willingly fight on the side of the government for a price. They weren't called terrorists because they belonged to England, though their methods were eerily similar.

Sherlock would have looked at the list and scoffed. He had some peculiar ideas about honour and thieves.

"You don't trust a criminal any farther than they've proven themselves."

The shade of Mycroft's younger brother sat sprawled in the chair across from Mycroft's desk, giving him that oh-so familiar look of smug superiority.

"Sometimes you check the tensile strength of your contacts with something minor or well-considered, and if they break you are prepared," he continued. "But you politicians- you keep piling more and more responsibility upon them, and then act surprised when they break."

"They have always proven themselves before," Mycroft argued. "What is to say this is the time they will break?"

Sherlock shook his head and withdrew a cigarette from his pocket. It was then that Mycroft recognized him- this was not the Sherlock that he'd sent to Asia. This was a Sherlock from just after his last stint in rehab: a Sherlock from before John Watson and Rose Tyler, whose hands shook almost constantly and who jumped at every noise. He was still brilliant, to be sure (though Mycroft had never and would never have told him) but he was so much more fragile.

"You would really hang the country's future on _luck_ and _trust_? You'd turn this over to someone who worships nothing but the almighty pound?" Sherlock sneered.

Mycroft sighed. Of course he would not. He'd get someone he could depend on, even if he couldn't control them.

"You know what you have to do, why are you putting it off?" Sherlock asked, leaning forward and giving Mycroft that all-knowing look. "The holiday is over, brother dear. Back to Baker Street for Sherlock Holmes."

"Has it been long enough? Have you 'kicked the habit' as they say? Rehab only ever lasted eight weeks, but something tells me that this drug has gotten much farther into your system."

Sherlock leaned back and smirked. "Is that what this is all about? Rose Tyler?"

"Of course it is," Mycroft shouted, and was surprised to find himself standing. Where had his control gone?

Sherlock continued to sit, smirking at his brother. "She terrifies you."

"That's absurd," Mycroft said, resuming his seat. "She's dangerous and you seem to be blind to it."

"Oh she's absolutely dangerous. She could tear me apart and leave me bleeding, and I'd probably bless her for it."

"So you're saying you're compromised," Mycroft said, narrowing his eyes.

Sherlock grinned. "Completely and willingly."

"So you see my position? You are too important to the state of peace in the realm to allow to be weakened."

"You talk about me as though I am a tool. Am I not also your brother? Does my happiness mean nothing in your pursuit of power?"

"Of peace," Mycroft bit off.

"And who is to say that I am weakened? I would say that I'm stronger. Most people would say the same- John does. He says she makes me better, and I agree."

"How is that possible?" Mycroft asked, skeptical.

"She, like John, is a partner- a second set of eyes a second brain." He ignore Mycroft's derisive snort and continued. "She has an native deductive skill and, most important, she believes in me."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow for him to elaborate.

"She believes that I can do something and so, because I am so involved with her, I cannot stand to disappoint her. I try that much harder."

"So you're a show-off?"

Sherlock smiled again. "I never denied it."

Mycroft sighed. "And what if she leaves? What if she disappoints you, or ends the relationship? I worry for you, Sherlock. To lose you again… there is no rehabilitation centre for a broken heart."

Sherlock shook his head. "You only give over to sentimentality in the security of your mind. It is a risk, Mycroft, and we both know it. The real question is whether you can afford not to take it? Can you afford to put the fate of the republic in the hands of one of those names on your list?"

Mycroft glanced again at the list in his hands and shook his head.

"You're right," he said heavily.

"Of course I am," Sherlock said with a smirk. "I'm you."

Mycroft looked up and the chair across from his desk was empty, as it had been the entire time.

He picked up the phone on his desk and tapped in a number that he had memorized but had never used.

"You have ninety minutes to prepare yourself and get to the Zeppelin port. Sherlock Holmes is returning from the dead."

~?~?~?~?~

Rose looked bemusedly at her mobile and the ringing of the dial tone. Twenty words, and a ticking clock, he was ever the master of drama, Mycroft.

Something warm and effervescent seemed to fill her chest and a grin spread across her face.

"Violet! Siger! He's coming back!"


End file.
